Excerpt from Dentabella Dreams, by Andi Rierden (work in progress):

FORM: ESSAY

Each season here carries its own imprimatur and it has taken me many years to recognize the more subtle signals of change. I know, for instance, that the shad bush lighting the landscape in the early spring coincides with the shad run that appears in the river like a restless ribbon of silk. I know how spring folds into summer after the tireless, excited and fragile bird migrants settle into the spruce canopies and swallow boxes surrounding the gardens and house. And in the narrow paths along the woods where spiders swing on gossamer threads next to stone fences where livestock once grazed, I know here lies an ancient history.

Website content for the five National Historic Sites of SW Nova Scotia (Parks Canada):

FORM: HISTORIC/EXPOSITORY

In the summer of 1605, French explorers built a settlement on a beautiful river
basin near the present town of Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia. There the soil was
fertile and the natural surroundings plentiful with fish and game. Most importantly, the Mi’kmaq people whose ancestors had lived in the region for thousands of years, welcomed the men and showed them how to survive in this new climate. Christened, Port-Royal, it became the first European settlement north of Florida. While only in existence a few years, the settlement and what it accomplished would prove to be a successful model for future exploration of the continent.

Text content for King's Theatre website:

FORM: PERSUASIVE

Come... experience regional theatre at its most sublime.

Engaging, exciting, eclectic and inspiring, King’s Theatre offers an exhilarating mix of stage performances, concerts, professional comedy, independent films and more.

While expansive in programming and vision, the theatre comfortably seats 220 in an intimate atmosphere with state of-the-art acoustics. As a non-profit performance arts centre, its mission is to forward the development of cultural, artistic and educational exchange through an approach designed to appeal to the widest possible audience.

This is our promise to you...

Somewhere in this rich interweave of classic and contemporary programs are presentations you just won’t want to miss.

Text content for Annapolis Family Medical Group recruitment website:

FORM: PERSUASIVE

Annapolis Royal is that special kind of place that lingers sweetly in your mind and memory. The town’s beautifully preserved historic and architectural legacy with its mix of Victorian, Georgian and Arts & Crafts homes, is the perfect backdrop to the artistic energy emanating from the shops, art galleries, farmers' market, gardens and theatre. Given this dynamic combination, it's no wonder the United Nations Environment Programme anointed it, "The most livable small town in the world."

Cradled within a land and seascape of serene natural beauty, the town rests in the palm of a long glacial valley severed by the Annapolis River. Buffered by two small mountain ranges on the north and south, the land on either side of the river widens into a broad swath of salt marsh and cultivated earth. Over the North Mountain lies the magnificent Bay of Fundy, to the south, an expanse of lakes, a national park and protected wilderness areas. With four distinct seasons, the region is ideal for kayaking, canoeing, hiking, snowshoeing, backcountry camping and other outdoor activities; or simply sitting back and savouring the view.

There is an active and vibrant arts community, which supports a nationally recognized gallery, and a theatre which presents a mix of local and traveling productions as well as current movies each week. For those who like an occasional urban experience, the bright lights of Halifax are only two hours away.

New York Times article on Lyme Disease vaccine

FORM: HEALTH/MEDICAL/SCIENCE

Modern vaccines like those used for tetanus and hepatitis B typically use a single protein isolated from the bacteria to jolt the immune system, which creates defensive cells with long memories. If the body is invaded by a microbe that displays the same protein, the immune cells remember it and spring to alert, releasing antibodies to attack the invader. Researchers for the Lyme vaccine initially worked under that same premise. The vaccine was produced using recombinant DNA, or gene-splicing technology, to replicate one of the abundant proteins of the Lyme disease spirochete, Borrelia burgdorferi.

From the opening of The Farm: Life Inside A Women's Prison, by Andi Rierden (Uni. of Massachusetts Press):

FORM: CREATIVE NONFICTION, BOOK

Lieutenant Beth Gilchrist is known around the Farm as an old blue shirt. She's worked as a guard here longer than anybody and can tell you just about anything you need to know. Young inmates fresh off the streets ask her, "Hey, you know my mother? You know my grandmother?" And likely she did or still does. Older long-termers say, "Beth, Oh me and her go back a long way." Most inmates agree, Gilchrist and COs like her are a dying breed. They'll tell you, "She's not like all these young COs comin' in here like they're on some power trip. That woman's got a good heart."

Editor's Notes , Gulf of Maine times
Excerpt from: Turtles and humans can co-exist

FORM: PROFILE/SCIENCE FEATURE ARTICLE

WHEN I CAUGHT UP WITH Brennan Caverhill this past July in Pleasant River, Nova Scotia, he told me he hadn't seen Ela the turtle since the wee hours of a mid-June morning. Under a starry sky, Caverhill found her clawing away the gravelly earth on the side of an old railway bed. “Ela always lays eggs between one and three in the morning, and it can take her up to seven hours to finish” he explains. After she loosed several rubbery eggs and covered up the hole as if nothing had happened, she trundled down a bank then vanished into a lush stand of marsh brush - never to return to her nest.

For his part, Caverhill placed a screened wooden frame over the turtle's nest to prevent predators and off-the road-vehicles from destroying it before the eggs hatch. The design allows sunlight to warm the nest and incubate the eggs. If all goes well, sometime this month or next, Ela's hatchlings will dig their way to the surface. At that point, Caverhill and volunteers will measure and mark those under the nest screens before releasing them.

The newborns will foray into a perilous and uncertain world. It is estimated that one percent of Blanding's turtles survive to adulthood. About the size of a Canadian toonie [a two-dollar coin], most are eaten by raccoons or birds, or are killed while crossing roads to reach waterways.

For years, researchers in Nova Scotia have been trying to change those odds. Caverhill is among a team of biologists and volunteers working within and outside the boundaries of Kejimkujik National Park trying to save the endangered turtle from extinction. Inside the park, the strategy includes familiarizing the public with Blanding's turtle habitat, helping people recognize them in the wild and getting vehicles to slow down on roads near areas where the turtles nest by using signs and speed bumps to prevent young turtles from being run over. Another park program rears hatchling turtles for two years before releasing them back into the wild in hopes of increasing their likelihood of survival.

From an article on Invasive Species, Gulf of Maine Times:

FORM: SCIENCE FEATURE ARTICLE

Meet Joe Rocker. The shiny interloper, identified by its V-shaped body and five spines behind the eyes loves to eat plants, insects, clams, oysters, worms, snails, urchins, sea stars, fish, crabs and more. And what a traveler. Known formally as the European green crab or Carcinus maenas, it was first recorded in Long Island Sound in the early-1800s and has been feasting its way north ever since. Marine biologists were shocked when the crab reached the cold waters of Maine, then in the 1950s it appeared in the Bay of Fundy, before shimmying up to the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Today, Joe Rocker, a nickname coined by New England fishermen in the early 1900s, has the distinction of being one of the most prolific crabs in the Gulf of Maine.